We're now back here for the whole of this month to make the record. We are working with the amazing Rich Costey (that's the reason we aren't recording in England, incidentally; I've wanted to work with Rich for a long time). It's exciting and daunting in equal measure. I'm pretty confident in the songs I have this time around, and I really feel like this is an opportunity to work on being a recording artist, using the studio as a proper tool. Or something like that. Time will, of course, tell, but I'm putting my bets down now on this being a good one.

In related news, Turner recently gave an interview to The AV Club where he talked about his hatred for John Lennon of The Beatles' solo song, "Imagine." He explained:

It's always grated on me as a song for a whole host of reasons: the production, the lyrics, the sappiness, its popularity, the knowledge that Lennon was so much better than this one song, and yet it's the one most people know. [...] Compared to, say Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin'," or indeed anything by Crass or The Clash or Propagandhi, it's so utterly vacuous. It's a Hallmark card set to music.

There's a pretty high dose of hypocrisy in here as well. For a man who had a dedicated, refrigerated room in his New York penthouse apartment for storing his fur-coat collection to sing "Imagine no possessions" takes a fair amount of chutzpah. I mean, I have no problem with the man collecting fur coats. Whatever floats your boat. But there's a certain strain of material disdain that can only result from being really fucking rich, which is intensely patronizing.

No way. Band on the run is one of the greatest albums ever. Plastic ono band is just wild wackiness for the sake of being wacky. When Paul gets weird, it has a purpose and the payoff is that much greater. Fireman- nuff said.

Huh. POB has always struck me as pretty bullshit-free, far from "wild wackiness". But whatever. I should probably disclose that I've hated Wings for as long as I can remember. It's hard to get past a lifelong prejudice like that.

Oh, and if you Google it it shouldn't be hard to find quotes from Lennon talking about it. Also, there's the "I used to be cruel to my woman/ I beat her and kept her apart from the things that she loved" bit on "Getting Better" that he contributed. So there ya go.

Although not the best Lennon solo song (Women is the... personal favorite) it's hard to denounce this song since it is probably the most influential song ever. Hell there is a video of Bill Clinton singing it, i think. But yah I agree it's like a Halmark card in music form.

I misread the headline and thought this was a video of Frank Turner doing an in-studio cover of "Imagine". I guess I'm glad he didn't since that's, like, an incredibly pompous 'rock star' move, but I'm still not sure why an off-hand comment about disliking a song made the headline. It's akin to Trevor Dunn's blog entry on Green Day inexplicably making news.

George was always my favorite Beatle. Solo-wise, though, admittedly he blew his load on the get-go and never recovered.

Really? Out of anything on 'All Things Must Pass'? It may have worked as a 1962 pop song, but in 1987 it just sounded so cheesy and repetitive. But, there are tons of people who love it, so maybe I'm just not hip to the groove.

I still count it as such, since it's still not news. I can grudgingly accept "enters the studio" as news for a music website, but a brief interview shooting the breeze about other people's music I don't. Maybe it would have made a passable "Happening Now" link, but I just can't accept "Musician hates well-known song" as "news".

"Compared to, say Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin'," or indeed anything by Crass or The Clash or Propagandhi" --- please, never, ever, ever again put Propagandhi in the same category as John Lennon. It's like comparing Muggsy Bogues to Michael Jordan.

Lennon wrote and recorded Imagine in 1971. He indicated at the time that he concluded that his message needed to be diluted to appeal to the lowest common denominator for it to be not just listened to but heard. "Revolution" wasn't cutting it. "Give Peace a Chance" wasn't cutting it so he deliberately made the most sugary song he could so that people would hear what he had to say.

Lennon and Ono moved to NY several years later and Yoko took over the management of John's earnings. She used his money to buy many ancient Egyptian artifacts that are now considered priceless and they stored them as well as many other things in their multi-floor apartment building in Manhattan. She invested in these artifacts before they really took off in the arts community as having value and now they are in museums all over the world. She turns the modest amount of money he had after the Beatles broke up into a 164 million dollar estate by the time John was killed. If you want to write that off as being a hypocrite for having too many possessions then so be it. Their investments have led to the personal enrichment of a generation of people in museums all over the world. I've read about 5 Lennon biographies and not one of them made any reference to this fur coat freezer. The Dakota building (where they filmed Rosemary's Baby) is run as a collective. Would the other tenants allow for a giant walk-in freezer to be built in their building?

Let's also note that Frank Turner is putting himself in league with John fucking Lennon in this statement. Buffoon.

I'm with the Meatmen in the idea of Two Down, Two To Go, but he wants to name check CRASS and The Clash when talking about how awesome the Beatle's are? Has he ever listened to CRASS or The Clash and hear that they poked at Beatlemania because they were against it/

Plus, he was against the rioters in Europe not to long ago because a few warehouses that belonged to the music industry suffered. All those so called indie labels were huge, one of them being Vice! Those are HUGE "indie" labels that have cash to spare, especially if it means that the protester/rioters/some cases anarchists got attention to them. This mother fucker needs to shut the fuck up about trying to compare music and throwing around bands like CRASS that he clearly doesn't get.

And, this interview is for the AV Club. Which I like, but is pretty as far from the punk scene you can get when talking to music press

"Phony Beatlemania has bitten the dust" references the media hype around the band, not the music itself. Joe Strummer and Mick Jones have both gone on record as saying they loved the Beatles music.

The Sex Pistols were the ones who said they hated the Beatles, and, allegedly, kicked out Glen Matlock for liking them too much. But Johnny Rotten was probably just trying to be edgy and against the gran for the sake of it, and listens to Paperback Writer secretly at night. Cuz that song rules.

"Phony Beatlemania has bitten the dust" references the media hype around the band, not the music itself. Joe Strummer and Mick Jones have both gone on record as saying they loved the Beatles music.

The Sex Pistols were the ones who said they hated the Beatles, and, allegedly, kicked out Glen Matlock for liking them too much. But Johnny Rotten was probably just trying to be edgy and against the gran for the sake of it, and listens to Paperback Writer secretly at night. Cuz that song rules.

Frank turner is an idiot poseur who doesn't know what good music is. I'm not "mr. I love John Lennon", but this guy sucks. Frank turner couldn't write his way out of a wet paper bag. He's got the nerve to say imagine sux(implying that he could do better)? He's also actually a republican. Fuck frank turner. And his music is bullshit.

So he likes John Lennon, he just thinks this song is sappy and too popular for him to like it? Mmmkay. It's pretty much the same message that John Lennon had in every song. Granted, sometimes that message was masked by drug-induced metaphors, but still, that was what John Lennon was about. Peace and love, bro!

It's kind of a slippery slope when you start telling artists what they should and should not write music about. I know that Frank Turner loves NOFX, yet Fat Mike has millions of dollars and is as big a hypocrite as anyone. I'll admit that I do love NOFX, but I cringe every time I hear Fat Mike sing "...but now look at who's got the dough..." That's not what punk rock is about. But who am I to tell Fat Mike what to sing about?